After a few conversations with Tom V. from PSA, he guided me to the XS15 vs the XV15 for my room like you recommended so I ordered one tonight. I'm excited to see how well it all fits together. He recommended me crossing over the Airmotiv 4s around 80hz and upward of 100hz because the XS15 plays well in those ranges.
Even better audio from a laptop v. Audio-gd NFB-15.1 + Emotiva Pro Airmotiv 4
- Thread starter Stereodude
- Start date
I put together a basic speaker stand out of heavy wood. They are a combination of two 2.5" x 2.5" solid maple posts with a solid maple top and bottom plate. It's probably not the perfect density of wood for this but it'll do for now. I have a set of 3/4" diameter isolate Sorbothane feet for the bottom of the stands. I'm eventually going to get a set of speaker spikes to decouple the monitors from the stand base once I'm happy with the final assembly of the speaker stands. I didn't like how one of the stands came out with the pillar mounting so I have some extra wood to make another plate. I'll eventually sand them down and stain them or paint them black to match the speakers. I'm happy with the height so far. They raise them up enough to put the height right in the middle of the tweeter and woofer.
ddrueding
Fixture
Looks great. Very clean work environment. My speakers sit much lower, but are angled upwards towards my ears. Not sure how much of a compromise that is.
Stereodude
Not really a
ddrueding
Fixture
Looks amazing for that price. It also looks huge. How many inputs do you anticipate using?
Stereodude
Not really a
One, maybe two. It's pretty much the size of a receiver.
ddrueding
Fixture
Indeed. Which sub are you using?
Stereodude
Not really a
To date I haven't been using a sub with the Stealth 8's. The sub I have in the room that I will integrate in at some point is a Dual GR SW-12-08 + Rythmik A370PEQ Servo Sub DIY creation that I built a few years back.
Stereodude
Not really a
Time to revisit this thread with some gripes.
One of the two Emotiva Airmotiv 4 speakers has a woofer that buzzes slightly. The voice coil on the driver is rubbing on some part of the motor. It's been that way for a long time but I don't use them all that often and I've been lazy. So I finally contact Emotiva to see if they'll send me a woofer under warranty. They tell me they don't send out parts and that I need to return the speaker to them. They also notify me that they don't accept RMA shipments if they're not in the original packaging. The speakers were shipped as pairs in a single box, and due to the packaging design I know I can't safely ship just one speaker back to them in the original packaging. So, I have to ship both speakers back to them. That's $30 in shipping. The woofer probably doesn't cost $30... So I asked if they would sell me a woofer and if so how much. A replacement woofer is $25 with free shipping, but they're trying to tell me I will forfeit the remaining warranty if buy the woofer and replace it myself. Nothing like extortion... I'm pretty sure that's a violation of the Magnuson Moss warranty act.
Then the Audio-gd NFB-15.1 has been pissing me off. It uses a TE8802 asynchronous USB audio chip. What I didn't realize when I bought this was just how crappy of a USB audio chipset it is. In general it doesn't want to play nice with Windows 7 or 10 on most computers I've tried it with. WASAPI and ASIO don't work well. Like if you pause playback it hangs on resuming. Of if you try to skip forward or backward it will hang. You might get it to start working again if you stop playback and power cycle it. If things go really bad you'll end up rebooting your PC after forcing it off holding the power button for 4 seconds since it won't shut down all the way. Kernel streaming works significantly better, but still has issues. I get intermittent little glitches and pops when scrolling web pages on my Yoga 3 Pro work PC. I'm going to see about getting a cheap CM6631A USB to SPDIF board and feeding the NFB-15.1 via SPDIF instead. I have a CM6631A USB to SPDIF board at home I use with the Chromebox and OpenELEC that I will borrow to make sure it works prior to buying another. I'm unsure about the Windows 10 driver situation for it.
One of the two Emotiva Airmotiv 4 speakers has a woofer that buzzes slightly. The voice coil on the driver is rubbing on some part of the motor. It's been that way for a long time but I don't use them all that often and I've been lazy. So I finally contact Emotiva to see if they'll send me a woofer under warranty. They tell me they don't send out parts and that I need to return the speaker to them. They also notify me that they don't accept RMA shipments if they're not in the original packaging. The speakers were shipped as pairs in a single box, and due to the packaging design I know I can't safely ship just one speaker back to them in the original packaging. So, I have to ship both speakers back to them. That's $30 in shipping. The woofer probably doesn't cost $30... So I asked if they would sell me a woofer and if so how much. A replacement woofer is $25 with free shipping, but they're trying to tell me I will forfeit the remaining warranty if buy the woofer and replace it myself. Nothing like extortion... I'm pretty sure that's a violation of the Magnuson Moss warranty act.
Then the Audio-gd NFB-15.1 has been pissing me off. It uses a TE8802 asynchronous USB audio chip. What I didn't realize when I bought this was just how crappy of a USB audio chipset it is. In general it doesn't want to play nice with Windows 7 or 10 on most computers I've tried it with. WASAPI and ASIO don't work well. Like if you pause playback it hangs on resuming. Of if you try to skip forward or backward it will hang. You might get it to start working again if you stop playback and power cycle it. If things go really bad you'll end up rebooting your PC after forcing it off holding the power button for 4 seconds since it won't shut down all the way. Kernel streaming works significantly better, but still has issues. I get intermittent little glitches and pops when scrolling web pages on my Yoga 3 Pro work PC. I'm going to see about getting a cheap CM6631A USB to SPDIF board and feeding the NFB-15.1 via SPDIF instead. I have a CM6631A USB to SPDIF board at home I use with the Chromebox and OpenELEC that I will borrow to make sure it works prior to buying another. I'm unsure about the Windows 10 driver situation for it.
ddrueding
Fixture
I'm sure I'm losing something using the Creative X-Fi HD as the DAC, but it doesn't have those issues. Now that my keyboard has a good volume control on it (daskeyboard Pro 4) I don't need the soundcard to be external or within reach. How much am I missing not going to something impressively technical to drive my 2x Adam A8X and random Polk 10" sub?
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
I don't know about the U.S.A., but this is totally illegal here. Emotiva will never get my money. Thanks for letting us know about this.
ddrueding
Fixture
This isn't the first time I've heard a company make this statement. I never retain original packaging. Normally I'll have a local professional service put together the box/protection and ship it anyway. I've never had it rejected if the packaging was sufficient.
Stereodude
Not really a
Don't worry, they will sell you new packaging.
Stereodude
Not really a
I sent them one last appeal via e-mail to not be evil (using other words) since apparently doing the right thing (sending me a replacement woofer on their dime) is out of the question...
Stereodude
Not really a
It works like a champ. Windows 10 found drivers on it's own. WASAPI works correctly. No glitches when scrolling a web page. Time to order up...
Stereodude
Not really a
I received an e-mail back from their VP clarifying that the remaining warranty wasn't void, but that the replacement part was sold without warranty.
Regardless, I called and bought my replacement part since it turns out I don't have all the polystyrene that was inside the double boxing originally. I'm not sure where it went. :scratch:
Stereodude
Not really a
I received the replacement woofer yesterday along with my CM6631A USB to SPDIF board. The woofer is installed and working nicely without any rubbing. The CM6631A board I got is a V1.3 board. The one I had at home was V1.2. No idea how they differ, but both worked with Windows 10 without having to provide a driver. I can use WASAPI now. It doesn't hang after resuming playback from pause or skipping forward or back. I haven't noticed any skipping when scrolling or initiating other GUI activity either.
Stereodude
Not really a
I added some Audeze EL-8 (closed) headphones to my work rig. They sound quite nice. Adorama had them on sale for $450 a few weeks ago. Turned out they were refurbished but the listing didn't state that. Adorama said they didn't know they were refurbished when they ordered them from Audeze. They offered a full refund or an extra $100 off. I took the money. For $350 they rock.
Stereodude
Not really a
My Fostex TH-X00 PurpleHeart headphones were delivered to my house yesterday. I brought them into the office to listen with. Generally speaking they sound good and are pleasant to listen to. They have more low end kick than the Audeze EL-8. On some tracks they can sound a tad boomy. I wouldn't want any more low end emphasis than they have, and would ideally like a tad less. The Audeze EL-8 are a bit more analytic like a studio monitor. The bass has less emphasis in the EL-8 and the upper mids are bit more forward. I think a cross between the two would be an interesting listen. I haven't compared either set to my HiFiMAN HE-500 headphones.
The EL-8 is a heavier set of cans with better outside isolation than the TH-X00 PH. The TH-X00 PH's opening in the ear cups are smaller than the EL-8, and they are pretty close to resting on touching all sides of my ears and I don't have big ears (I think).
The EL-8 is a heavier set of cans with better outside isolation than the TH-X00 PH. The TH-X00 PH's opening in the ear cups are smaller than the EL-8, and they are pretty close to resting on touching all sides of my ears and I don't have big ears (I think).